Exploding Gender Myths

With Special Guests:

• Professor Mark Wooden and
• Professor Richard B. Felson.

Prof Mark Wooden, social researcher at the University of Melbourne, is a very courageous man. Last week he was the only male taking part in a National Press Club panel discussion on the gender pay gap. Faced with a mostly female audience, he dared to suggest that the pay gap between men and women in Australia has “got a lot to do with the fact that women are not prepared to work longer hours.” He said that men were earning on average 15 per cent more than women because they put in more time at the workplace. Even if workplaces were family friendly, “many women would not pursue long-hour jobs”. You can read Susanna Dunkerley’s story about this at news.com.au here or Andrew Bolt’s opinion piece at the Herald Sun here.

Now to many of you, especially those who have read Warren Farrell’s Why Men Earn More, this might just sound like common sense. However to those that subscibe to the politically correct feminist worldview that dominates gender politics in Australia and across the Western world, this statement is tantamount to sacrilege. You see we have been told for almost forty years that the main reason men earn more on average than women is that women are discriminated against in the workplace. The thought that many women might actually choose to live longer, healthier, more balanced lives by working (and hence earning) less, and spending more time with their families and friends, while many men feel they don’t have this option, well that’s just crazy-talk.

As Andrew Bolt put it, “Prof Wooden’s remarks drew gasps from the mostly female audience. Gasps? Here were professional women being told of a link between hours and pay, and gasping? I refuse to believe all these women, including ones as successful and seemingly bright as Minister for the Status of Women Tanya Plibersek, are actually so dumb as to not know that Wooden is actually right. After all, we have laws banning people from being paid less just because they are women, and I know of not a single job where the pay for the sexes is different. Do you? Nor can I imagine bosses paying less than market rates for workers in this tight market just because they are women.”

Some other widespread myths of the last forty years concern the issue of domestic violence. One of them is that husbands engage in more marital violence than wives because they are more controlling. The other is that societal norms permit violence within marriage and that gender roles encourage violence by males moreso than females. Richard B. Felson, Professor of Crime, Law, Justice and Sociology at the Pennsylvania State University in the US, has published extensive research that challenges both of these myths.

In The control motive and marital violence (co-authored with M.C. Outlaw) he writes that:

“The role of the control motive in marital violence is examined using data on current and former marriages from the Survey of Violence and Threats of Violence Against Women and Men. The findings indicate no support for the position that husbands engage in more marital violence than wives because they are more controlling. In former marriages, we observe statistical interactions between gender and control: former husbands who were controlling or jealous were particularly likely to be verbally aggressive and to engage in violence. The controlling husbands (present and former), however, are not particularly likely to engage in violence that is frequent, injurious, or unprovoked. The evidence suggests that husband and wives may differ in their methods of control but not their motivation to control.”

In Gender Norms and Retaliatory Violence Against Spouses and Acquaintances (co-authored with Scott L. Feld), he writes that:

“Contrary to claims that societal norms permit violence within marriage, respondents disapproved of retaliatory violence against spouses more than they did against acquaintances. Contrary to claims that gender roles encourage violence by males more than females, respondents were just as likely to approve of female retaliation against males as they were male retaliation against males, and they were more approving of females retaliating against females than of males retaliating against females. Male and female respondents had similar, strongly disapproving attitudes toward men s retaliating against women, even though male respondents were more accepting of retaliation in all other conditions. Evidence clearly shows that societal norms discourage retaliation between spouses and men s retaliating against women. Consequently, violent wife abuse continues despite (not because of) societal norms.”

He writes in a feature article in the American Sociological Association’s Contexts journal, titled Is violence against women about women or about violence?:

“Suppose a group of men murdered millions of women. Before doing so they shaved their heads, stripped them, and sometimes beat and sexually assaulted them. Would this be an appalling example of sexism? Not necessarily. The Nazis committed these deeds, but they killed millions of men as well. If we ignore their violence against men and look only at that against women, their behaviour appears to reflect sexism. Perhaps this same kind of selective focus affects our understanding of violence against women today. Are the offenders sexist or just violent men? Are women victimized because of their gender, or because they make up half of the population?”

Listen Now (MP3)